Have you ever felt like nothing can go right, one “bad” thing happens after another, and you just can’t catch a break?

Lately I have fallen into that trap…

And I’m starting to take it personal.

I can’t help but wonder why nothing seems to “go our way.”

I’ve even gone as far as asking, “What did we do to deserve this?”

Welcome to my pity party. It’s not a fun place to be.

You know…the SUV needs all new ($1,000) tires, all the windows in said SUV refuse to roll up at the same time, a huge business deal falls through, you get sick and rack up an ungodly ER bill…

None of it is earth shattering, or life-ending, or tragic.

And my husband and I find ourselves constantly saying, “It could always be worse.”

And it could. We don’t need a reminder of that. We hear of horrible things happening around us every day.

We know our life is good. Great. Ideal.

I’m not here to compare troubles.

As always, I’m here to try and learn something.

And I’m just not happy with, “It could always be worse” as the lesson.

So, then what am I supposed to be learning from all this?

How to be more patient? How to live simply? How to be frugal? How to appreciate the small things?

I’m starting to think the lesson is how to focus on what is already good rather than what “could be worse.”

I know you’re thinking, How perfect and cheery and pleasant!

Well, it’s not as easy as it sounds. A few weeks ago I asked my mother-in-law to borrow the book, One Thousand Gifts. I was determined to “dare to live fully right were you are” as the cover promises.

I read the first ten pages and had to stop due to uncontrollable crying.

Okay, maybe I’m not ready for this lesson yet.

After my poor hubby accidentally backed into someone’s car in the bank parking lot today, we started questioning things again. Not sure if I was ready to revisit the-book-that-made-me-cry, tonight I serendipitously came across this article which invites us to ask, “Do you know what’s great about that?” every time a challenge arises.

The car needs all new tires! You know what’s great about that? It will be super-safe and easy to drive once we have them!

My outlook finally started to change and just when it seemed like one more “bad” thing had happened to us, I remembered to ask, “Do you know what was great about today?”

And I had the best possible answer.

We got to witness the miracle of life today.

We got to see our daughter’s beautiful face for the first time.

We got to hear her healthy heartbeat.

And we got to watch her stick her tongue out at us, as if to say, “How dare you need reminding of what is great about today!”

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I hope to push the tears aside and read more of One Thousand Gifts, start keeping a gratitude journal, and continue to ask, “What’s great about that?” when more challenges arise.

A helpful journal topic to explore this idea is making a cluster of your current gifts and challenges.

yeah about that! oh life. can’t avoid those struggles but i love how you choose to change the perspective to “what’s great about that”! i just read something similar in Oprah’s mag and it talked about “cultivating” that kind of attitude. There is always something good about it but really does take effort and discipline to look at it that way. i’ve been getting lots of opportunity to practice though… so i guess that’s what’s great about that! ha =)